


distaff

by papyrocrat



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 06:11:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papyrocrat/pseuds/papyrocrat





	distaff

“Are you sure about that?”

Buffy tenses and puts her exhausted mind back into lockdown. She doesn’t look. She won’t give it that kind of satisfaction.

Silent treatment doesn’t work, though. She doesn’t mind what it looks like any more, but she wishes the First didn’t act so much like Dawn.

“Sure about what?”

“That you’re going to win.”

It’s straightened her hair and is just a hint shorter and-

“Darla now? Kind of a reach, don’t you think?”

The First smiles and tosses Faith’s cigarettes at her face. Buffy catches them reflexively, and then realizes what’s just happened.

“You’re not the First.”

Darla shakes her head, and her smile is less of a smirk than Buffy remembers. 

Buffy gropes for a stake. This is a fight she can win on her own. “How many times do you have to die?”

“I could ask you the same thing. But I have manners.” Darla gently pulls the stake out of her hands. “I’m not here for that.”

Buffy doesn’t quite know why she agrees. “What, then?”

“Do you really think you’re ready?” 

Do you really think you’re ready, Buffy? Darla shouldn’t remind Buffy of her mother. “For what?”

“For lots of little superpowered grandkids running around.” What? “They’re not going to be yours, you know. If it works.”

“Faith?”

Darla nods again. “Some of them are going to be crazy. Some of them are going to be more powerful than you can imagine. And most of them are going to die.”

“What would you know about that?”

“More than just about anyone.” Buffy glances quizzically towards Spike, sprawled on his back with his right hand flopping off the bed, but Darla shakes her head. “This isn’t about him.”

Dru. Jasmine.

“They’ll be able to take everything away from you, over and over. What will you do then, if you’re on your own all over again?”

“Then I’m still going to win.”

There’s a pause. “I hope you do,” Darla says almost wistfully.

Buffy feels her eyebrows smooth out. “You really do, don’t you?”

But Darla is gone.


End file.
